A New Jersey woman is suing the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission for denying her attempt to keep God off her vanity license plate by proclaiming her atheism.

The defendant in the case, Shannon Morgan, attempted to purchase
a vanity plate from the MVC website in November 2013, entering
“8THEIST” as her desired personalization, according to
the lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday.
But the website denied her request, stating, “Requested plate
text is considered objectionable.”

The complaint says that Morgan then decided to experiment with
other, more religious requests.

“Confused about why the Commission considered her proposed
plate objectionable, Ms. Morgan entered 'BAPTIST' and discovered
that the website did not flag this proposal as ‘objectionable.’
Instead, it displayed a preview of a personalized license plate
reading 'BAPTIST' and permitted her to continue the
application.”

Morgan then attempted to contact the MVC to inquire as to why the
“8THEIST” plate was rejected and to ask for help in
obtaining the plate. At this point, MVC employees gave her the
runaround, according to the suit. Finally, Morgan sent the agency
a certified letter reiterating her desire to obtain the vanity
plate and find out why it had been deemed objectionable. She
received no response.

Because the state did not find a potential “BAPTIST”
plate objectionable, the suit says, Morgan believes that the
state therefore favors religion over non-belief, which
discriminates against atheists like herself.

The executive director of Americans United for Separation of
Church and State (AU), the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, agreed. “The
state of New Jersey is favoring religion while disparaging
non-belief. It simply has no right to do that,” he said
in a statement. “This license plate issue
may seem like a small matter but it is indicative of a much
larger problem – atheists are often treated by the government as
second-class citizens.”

AU is an advocacy group based in Washington, DC that is
representing Morgan in the lawsuit against Raymond Martinez, the
chair of the New Jersey MVC.

“This isn’t a frivolous lawsuit. All the MVC had to do was
say ‘yes’ to the plate — or provide a compelling reason when
saying ‘no.’ They did neither,” blogger Hemant Mehta wrote
on the Friendly Atheist. “Since MVC officials
research all vanity plates before approving them, this isn’t just
a computer glitch. Someone thinks ‘atheist’ is a dirty,
offensive, objectionable word.”

This is not the first time the New Jersey MVC has faced
allegations of discrimination against atheists. In August 2013,
David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said the MVC
rejected his request for an “ATHE1ST”
plate, sending a letter that called the term
“objectionable.” When Silverman tried to clarify what
this meant, an employee allegedly told him that the proposed
license plate was “offensive.”

Silverman filed an appeal with the MVC, and was soon notified
that the state of New Jersey had reversed its ruling and would allow the
“ATHE1ST” license plate. MVC Spokeswoman Elyse Coffey
blamed the initial decision on a clerical error, arguing that a
clerk exceeded her authority by calling the proposed plate
offensive.

The lawsuit notes that the occurrence of two rejections of
similar vanity plates within three months of each other shows
discrimination against atheists and expresses a preference by the
state for religion over atheism.

“The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission’s actions are
mean-spirited and derogatory,” Ayesha N. Khan, the AU’s
legal director, said in the statement. “They’re also
unconstitutional because the government cannot endorse belief
over non-belief.”

Morgan is requesting she be allowed the “8THEIST” vanity
plate and asks that the MVC “adopt and implement a regulatory
scheme that requires any restriction of expression on
personalized license plates to be based on specific, objective,
viewpoint-neutral criteria,” the lawsuit states.

Sandy Grossman, a spokesperson for the New Jersey MVC, told
NJ.com, “We review every request personally...and we review
them for anything that’s offensive [or] objectionable.” She
said that officials research the meaning of each request, and
those officials send a letter to the requestor if they are unsure
of the meaning.